24.2.15

VI. Nara & Owls

Here's the story of the time we went to Nara.

As you know, one thing Nara is extremely renowned for are their sacred deer. They are everywhere and they are a big attraction with tourists. There are also a lot of temples and shrines, but the deer are the main selling point. They are literally just chilling out everywhere without a care in the world.

Forever dropping the standard squad pose.

Ignoring the ridiculously cute deer for a moment, it really was quite a spiritual and beautiful place. We made lots of wishes and rang lots of bells. I still regret not buying some Japanese incense.

Another fun fact about Nara is that you can pay to get dressed in a kimono and walk around in it for the day. It would definitely make walking around the parks a lot harder. I say parks because it seemed like lots of parks formed in to one big park but I could be wrong.

There were vendors like this everywhere selling biscuits for the deer.

This temple was my favourite in Nara. It would have looked so beautiful in cherry blossom season. Imagine all those skeletal trees speckled with pink blossoms. I would so desperately love to go back to Japan purely for the scenery in cherry blossom season.

After wandering around the parks for a while we decided to buy some biscuits to feed the calm, friendly deer... or so we thought. As soon as you buy biscuits these happy little Bambi's turn in to blood sucking monsters. Here I will illustrate this for you the best way I know how:

Before

After

Here is a photo of deer biting my jumper. They also liked to headbutt me. Some were actually quite painful. Thank god they didn't have horns!

I am actually running away in pure terror.

I made it fall asleep!!!

This little dude still had his horns.

The babies were so ridiculously adorable. Tried so hard to feed them but the adults always came and stole the food. Can't believe how greedy they are.

In the process of getting headbutt.

I thought I was bonding with this deer. I was wrong. Moral of the story: never trust a deer.

We saw a lot of deer doing this. Still not entirely sure why they were doing it. Maybe they just like the taste of rust.

One thing I still dislike a lot about Japan are the designer teacup dogs. This is apparently a fully grown miniature dachshund. I have one of those and I can tell you with certainty that there is no way that tiny little thing is just dachshund. Most of the dogs in Japan seem to be mass bred with Chihuahuas which results in tiny dogs of different breeds that are very prone various health issues. It is pretty depressing, especially in pet shops. Of course they are cute, but is it really worth it?

We went walking around again and stumbled across this lovely old lady who was sitting alone with a group of deer feeding them chestnuts. We came over and she gave us a chestnut each to feed to the babies. She was treating them like her children, slapping away the big ones who were getting in the way. This was a pretty lovely moment and a bit of a highlight of my day. Look how adorable the babies are with their tiny little stick legs and Bambi spots! Melts my heart.

You know how there are those emojis that you have no idea what they are because they are usually something random and Japanese. This is one of the food ones! It is the stick with the pink, white and green ball on it. Couldn't tell you the name if I tried. It's kind of like damper with syrup.

Here's another classic Japanese emoji.

This was the saddest deer we had ever seen in our entire lives. Broke our hearts, he was so wounded. We weren't sure if we should tell someone and if we were to, who do we tell? Poor guy had an open wound on his head. Must have gotten in to a fight earlier.

We reluctantly said goodbye to the deer and made our way back to the station through the piles of souvenir shops. We didn't go to Kyoto on this day which is what we had planned, we decided to postpone that trip and make a day out of it. Instead I planned a surprise for Saya and she just had to follow me blindly.

We stopped over at a little cafe to wait until it was time to go to the surprise. This cafe was so old school, anime, spirited away, traditional style. I had to add sugar to my hot chocolate! The squat toilet took away from the cuteness of it a little but hey thats just old school Japan. It's either a squat toilet or a robot toilet, there is no in between in Japan.

THE SURPRISE WAS AN OWL CAFE! I TOOK SAYA TO AN OWL CAFE AND IT WAS EVERYTHING!

I am deadset obsessed with owls. This place was awesome. We had to buy an overpriced drink and listen to the lady tell us what to do, and then we had an hour to play with the owls. Above is a barn owl that is a lady's pet that she just brought to the cafe. Who does that!? I love Japan!

This was the biggest owl, not going to lie I was a little intimidated. Look at the claws on that beast, will give Kylie Jenner a run for her money.

I fucking love this owl. I don't usually swear on my blog but this owl deserves it. Seriously could not deal with how hilarious it's face is. And pretty much every time the camera went off it would look, so it delivered some pretty killer photos.

"Hey"

"Hey"

"Hey"

"Hey"

"Hey"

"Hey"

This owl was just a little terrifying. Imagine those eyes looking through your window at night? No thanks.

This was by far our favourite owl, the baby owl. Still cannot get over how adorable it was. We were so rushed at the end to get a photo with it because our time was up.

Nailed it. This was a pretty great day. Our trip to Japan so far had been pretty animal obsessed and I'm not even mad, it was awesome. Absolutely no shame. By the way apparently there are also falcon cafes in Japan! Something for everyone!